A Feast for Dragons

Alannys was concerned
he would always be ten years old, it seemed. “Theon could not come,” Asha had
to tell her. “Father sent him reaving along the
Stony
Shore
.”
Lady Alannys had naught to say to that. She only nodded slowly, yet it was
plain to see how deep her daughter’s words had cut her.
    And now I must tell her that Theon is dead, and drive yet
another dagger through her heart. There were two knives buried there
already. On the blades were writ the words Rodrik and Maron, and
many a time they twisted cruelly in the night. I will see her on the morrow, Asha vowed to herself. Her journey had been long and wearisome, she could not
face her mother now.
    “I must speak with Lord Rodrik,” she told Three-Tooth. “See
to my crew, once they’re done unloading Black Wind. They’ll bring
captives. I want them to have warm beds and a hot meal.”
    “There’s cold beef in the kitchens. And mustard in a big
stone jar, from Oldtown.” The thought of that mustard made the old woman smile.
A single long brown tooth poked from her gums.
    “That will not serve. We had a rough crossing. I want
something hot in their bellies.” Asha hooked a thumb through the studded belt about
her hips. “Lady Glover and the children should not want for wood nor warmth.
Put them in some tower, not the dungeons. The babe is sick.”
    “Babes are often sick. Most die, and folks are sorry. I
shall ask my lord where to put these wolf folk.”
    She caught the woman’s nose between thumb and forefinger and
pinched. “You will do as I say. And if this babe dies, no one will be
sorrier than you.” Three-Tooth squealed and promised to obey, till Asha let her
loose and went to find her uncle.
    It was good to walk these halls again. Ten Towers had always
felt like home to Asha, more so than Pyke. Not one castle, ten castles
squashed together, she had thought, the first time she had seen it. She
remembered breathless races up and down the steps and along wallwalks and
covered bridges, fishing off the Long Stone Quay, days and nights lost amongst
her uncle’s wealth of books. His grandfather’s grandfather had raised the
castle, the newest on the isles. Lord Theomore Harlaw had lost three sons in the
cradle and laid the blame upon the flooded cellars, damp stones, and festering
nitre of ancient Harlaw Hall. Ten Towers was airier, more comfortable, better
sited . . . but Lord Theomore was a changeable man, as any of his wives might
have testified. He’d had six of those, as dissimilar as his ten towers.
    The
Book
Tower
was the fattest of the ten, octagonal in shape and made with great blocks of
hewn stone. The stair was built within the thickness of the walls. Asha climbed
quickly, to the fifth story and the room where her uncle read. Not that
there are any rooms where he does not read. Lord Rodrik was seldom seen
without a book in hand, be it in the privy, on the deck of his Sea Song, or whilst holding audience. Asha had oft seen him reading on his high seat
beneath the silver scythes. He would listen to each case as it was laid before
him, pronounce his judgment . . . and read a bit whilst his captain-of-guards
went to bring in the next supplicant.
    She found him hunched over a table by a window, surrounded
by parchment scrolls that might have come from Valyria before its Doom, and
heavy leather-bound books with bronze-and-iron hasps. Beeswax candles as thick
and tall as a man’s arm burned on either side of where he sat, on ornate iron
holders. Lord Rodrik Harlaw was neither fat nor slim; neither tall nor short;
neither ugly nor handsome. His hair was brown, as were his eyes, though the
short, neat beard he favored had gone grey. All in all, he was an ordinary man,
distinguished only by his love of written words, which so many ironborn found
unmanly and perverse.
    “Nuncle.” She closed the door behind her. “What reading was
so urgent that you leave your guests without a host?”
    “Archmaester Marwyn’s Book of Lost Books. ” He lifted
his gaze from the page to study her. “Hotho brought me a copy from Oldtown. He
has a daughter he would have me wed.” Lord Rodrik tapped the book with a long
nail. “See here? Marwyn claims to have found three pages of Signs and
Portents, visions written down by the maiden daughter of Aenar Targaryen
before the Doom came to Valyria. Does Lanny know that you are here?”
    “Not as yet.” Lanny was his pet name for her mother;
only the Reader called her that. “Let her rest.” Asha